


all mad here

by strictlybecca



Series: fifteen pieces of nagron [9]
Category: Spartacus: Vengeance
Genre: Alice In Wonderland AU, Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Mad Tea Party, Madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlybecca/pseuds/strictlybecca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice in Wonderland AU: Nasir stumbles upon the maddest tea party he has ever seen. But things are not quite as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all mad here

**Author's Note:**

> This one got weird on me. For lisapanda on tumblr who requested a Alice in Wonderland-based AU. And she got this... so, hope you like it!
> 
> In the book, the reason the Hatter and the others are having a tea party is because Time (to punish Hatter) stops time at precisely six to force them to have tea, perpetually. I kind of picked up this idea and ran with it - hard.

“You’re all completely mad, aren’t you,” Nasir says with very little astonishment. He repeats the words to himself like they alone might explain everything, but there is little possibility of that.

“If you insist on placing labels upon us,” Mira sniffs, tucking her wide-brimmed top hat more firmly against her head, nudging the teacup balancing there with a brush of her fingers. “Then I suppose, clinically, by proper diagnosis, through the correct legal channels, with-”

“Yup!” Duro laughs, “We’re all mad here. All the very best people are, haven’t you noticed?” he asks curiously, as if unsure of how a person could be at all interesting without a little madness in them. He takes a long sip of tea out of his cracked teacup, cold tea seeping out of every side possible and staining the tablecloth.

Nasir looks curious in response. “Have you always been mad? Or did you go mad along the way?” He gestures down the table and Agron follows the movement lazily with his eyes. Each of them at the table have grown thin and sallow with the years spent in these chairs. Agron cannot remember a view that was not of this table, cannot remember a sky that was not the patch above them. He has memorized the faces of his tea time guests long ago – so that every minute change that occurs due to age or accident remains the only kind of change he sees.

“The latter not the former, though the former feels more true,” grouses Crixus from the end of the table. “He drove us mad, finds us funny,” he continues dully, flicking his fingers against the delicate china and watching it shatter and piece itself back together – over and over and over again.

“He?” Nasir looks even more confused. “He who?”

“He what,” Agron corrects, feeling the words spit themselves out before he can even form them in his mind. He’s known this particular feeling of madness for so long that it seems like he’s been sitting at this tea table for eternity. Maybe he has? “What is what he is, not who.” He tosses another pebble at the mishmash of teapots taking up every inch of space at the overgrown and wildly colorful tea table. The vines and the flowers have grown up along the table legs, creeping vines winding their way around cups and saucers, dipping lightly into delicate porcelain pottery with soft leaves. Proof of their eternal teatime.

 _Eternity and one, eternity and two, eternity and three,_ his mind threatens to count and Agron finds himself laughing without having heard anything funny. It is too easy to fall prey to the tickling sensation in his mind and throat, prodding him along towards nonsense. But this boy, this pretty boy who has appeared at their table, too tiny to make a real difference, not enough Nonsense in him to attract His attention. _Perhaps he will become trapped too_ , Agron thinks, and somehow this thought is so funny it prompts another round of laughter – this time catching Duro up in its sound. The two brothers laugh so hard they fall out of their chairs, just in time for-

“Tea time!” cries Mira, and they all hop up and run around the table, snatching up cups and food until they skid to a stop at different chairs and throw themselves in them. 

“What the hell – he what? What are you talking about?” Nasir demands, his tone angry now, filled with a frustration that has built in Agron for years – but with no way out, the way blocked by silly little rhymes and sing song words that pour out of his mouth without his permission whenever he opens it.

“What what what,” Agron taunts, “The boy’s got it now, not who but what.”

“ _Time_ , stupid,” Duro says, rolling his eyes. “Time is a fickle dick and we dance to its tune-”

“Its tea!” Mira interrupts, giggling. “We dance to its tea!”

“Tea to a T,” Crixus counters, and they all break down in laughter.

“Stop laughing!” Nasir shouts. “There’s nothing funny about this, about any of you, just make sense!”

“Can’t make sense out of nothing, boy’s old enough to know that!” Duro crows, slamming his hand on the table, sending tea cups rocketing everywhere. “Sense must be grown and we’re plum out!” he tugs at his pants pockets until the white tongues are hanging out and he displays with pride the moth-eaten holes and absolute emptiness of them. “No cents to have and no sense to make!” 

“What do you mean Time? Time is the he what?” Nasir asks evenly, eyes darting around, settling on Agron, whose lip curls into a nasty smile.

“The whatsit and the howsit is Time,” Agron allows, “Finds us funny when we rhyme.” Duro lets out a silly giggle.

“He does this to you? He did this, I mean?” Nasir takes another step closer to the table and Agron rises out of his chair with a half roar, half mad with fear and excitement that this boy might step too close, might catch the madness, might never leave the table again, might never leave Agron. Nasir darts away, but remains determined looking. 

“He does it and he did it and he dids it and he dues it!” Mira laughs. “When is no matter, when Time is the whatsit!”

“He’s trapped you here? For how long?”

“ _When_ questions are so boring when the _when_ is when all the whens could ever when,” Duro complains and Mira hums in agreement, tipping a full pot of cold tea into several cups, the overrun splashing across the table. Crixus tosses a full teacup at Duro, who laughs and bats it away, saucer crashing into the side of Agron’s head, sending porcelain shards everywhere.

“Forever and a day, eternity and one and two and three and four,” Agron says, brushing away the remnants of the saucer with ease, ignoring the sticky feeling on his fingertips that means blood or tea or bloodandtea. “Whenever he wants and he stops when he wants-“

“When he wants is always tea time,” Mira adds helpfully. “Always tea, always Time, never any other.”

“He stops you at tea time, so you’re forever stuck having tea?” Nasir translates hesitantly, but none of the guests pay him any mind, too concerned with pelting Crixus with rock hard cakes and candies, Duro cackling as he throws three and four at a time. “No wonder you’re mad,” he breathes.

“No wondering needed,” Agron says sharply. “Wandering through a wonder is never a good idea. You’ll find the madness right quick on a wonder wander like that.” Nasir considers him for a long second and Agron squirms, upending a plate of year old cookies into Mira’s lap on accident. The boy's eyes do something queer to the madness spinning inside of him and Agron feels the kind of uncertainty he’s never felt since the madness overtook him.

Uncertainty is the realm of the anxious and the sane. No room for worry in the mad.

“I’ll find Time,” Nasir promises, staring directly into Agron’s eyes, piercing through the hazy veil that has surrounded him for so long. For the first time in years, Agron’s thoughts run linearly, piling on top of one another in organized boxes, here and there and over there – but _sane_. “I’ll make him let you go, I promise. I won’t leave you like this,” he swears, letting his eyes linger on Agron’s for another long moment before dancing along the table to meet Duro’s and Mira’s and Crixus’. They don’t seem similarly affected like Agron, though they peer at the boy interestedly, like he is some bug they have yet to figure out how to squash.

Breaking his gaze with Agron makes the veil begin to reappear and it is all Agron can do not to immediately break into hysterics. “Time is of the essence,” he taunts instead, and he can see Nasir square his shoulders. “The essence and the presence, he’s the whatsit and the howsit." 

“But not the who,” Nasir says steadily – and it is sense, but somehow has enough of a hint of Nonsense that Agron understands precisely what he means, and deep down beneath the veil of madness, he feels reassured. “I’ll return.”

He turns and starts down the hill, just as Crixus shouts, “Tea time!” and Agron is compelled to launch himself out of his chair and dance around the table with his brother and the others – but his eyes remain on the back of Nasir until he disappears into the fog and forest. And then he remembers little else but the strange little song in the back of his head.

He hums it and laughs and laughs and laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me some feedback on this one? Because this one got weird quick, haha.


End file.
